The present invention seeks to provide a stopper which can be inserted into the mouth of a container and whose pressure against the mouth can be controlled by rotating the stopper's knob in either circumferential direction. The stopper includes a nut which can move up and down the axial direction within a guide member included in the stopper. The guide includes several prongs which expand and contract as the nut travels up and down the guide. The stopper further includes a plug whose outer surface is in contact with the mouth of the container and whose inner surface houses the guide member. As the prongs expand and contract they increase and decrease the radial pressure caused by the plug against the mouth of the container.
The mechanism which will be described in full detail below comprises a knob including a threaded bolt at one end, a guide with a tapered inside surface and several prongs, and a special nut with grooves around its perimeter to travel up and down the guide. This assembly is embedded inside a plug included in the stopper. The guide presses against the sidewalls of the plug from inside. When the knob is turned clock-wise the nut is pulled upwards toward the top and gradually opens up the prongs of the guide due to the tapered inner surface of the guide, exerting more and more pressure on the inside wall of the plug as it goes up. Depending on the bottle and the container, the outside diameter of the plug containing the assembly is such that the plug easily fits in the bottle's mouth (or the container's mouth) with very small amount of pressure (just enough so that it doesn't fall into the bottle or container). Once the stopper is placed, turning the knob clock-wise will apply pressure from inside the plug as described above and seals the container. Likewise, by turning the knob in the opposite direction the pressure applied from inside the plug is removed and the plug is loosened and removed to open the bottle or container.
One non-limiting but very specific application of this new stopper is for sealing wine bottles. The wine industry and wine manufacturers across the world use only cork material as the plug for sealing their bottles and do not accept any other material. They can use this new stopper on the bottle which from the point of view of touching the wine and the sealing surface against the bottle's glass is the same as what they are used to with the added advantage that the consumer can easily open the bottle by turning the top knob without the need for a wine opener device. Furthermore, after a partial use of the wine content in the bottle, the consumers can reuse the stopper to seal the bottle in exactly the same way as it was done originally when the wine was made and bottled. Even if the wine bottle uses the conventional cork that is opened with a wine opener, the consumers can still use the stopper of the present invention after opening the bottle to save the content.
Wine and champagne bottles use stoppers made from cork material. Because of the cellular structure of cork, it is easily compressed upon insertion into a bottle and will expand to form a tight seal. The interior diameter of the neck of glass bottles tends to be inconsistent, making this ability to seal through variable contraction and expansion an important attribute. Although other types of closures such as synthetic plastic stoppers and screw caps have been used, cork remains the choice stopper for wine and champagne manufacturers. In fact, in some countries screw caps are often seen as a cheap alternative destined only for the low grade wines.
Corkscrews are the only practical equipment that can be used to open a wine or champagne bottle. Furthermore, it is common occurrence that the use of corkscrew damages the cork stopper during opening. This is usually caused by improper insertion of the corkscrew into the cork stopper and/or misalignment between the corkscrew axis and cork stopper axis. Accordingly, there is a need for a stopper for a container whose sealing pressure can be controlled and which eliminates the need for a separate apparatus for opening the stopper.
Although various stoppers have been proposed which touch upon some aspects of the above problems, they do not provide solutions to the existing limitations in providing stoppers for containers with controllable sealing pressure. For example, Smith et al., U.S. Pat. No. 8,123,054 entitled “Dispensing Caps for Beverage Containers” discloses a drinking cap which includes a first tubular portion for connection to the mouth of a beverage container and an elongate actuating member situated at least partly within the first tubular portion and connected to it by a resilient, annular, integral web in which one or more flow openings are formed. The actuating member is longitudinally movable in the axial direction between an open position of the flow openings and a closed position thereof. The cap also includes an insert and a piston which together define a reservoir. The insert includes a cylindrical wall and a portion which is movable under the action of pressure within the reservoir and in which a discharge aperture is formed. A flow tube is connected to the piston around an aperture and extends through the discharge aperture in the insert and forms a sliding seal with the edge of the discharge aperture. The actuating member is arranged to engage the piston when it is moved from the closed position to the open position and thus to move the piston towards the insert, whereby the increased pressure created in the reservoir causes the movable portion of the insert to move away from the piston until the flow tube moves out of the discharge aperture in the insert.
The Int. App. Pub. No. W09520527A1 to Smith entitled “Sealing Cap for Containers” discloses a multiple cap arrangement which is provided to seal the open end of a container. The multiple cap seal includes a sealing cap and a locking cap that are attached by a hinge. The sealing cap is a cup shaped member with a frustoconical side wall and a convex end wall that bulges in a direction away from the open end of the cup member when the sealing cap is inserted into the container. As the pressure inside the container increases, the convex end wall deflects and flattens causing the frustoconical side wall of the cup shaped member to expand radially outward and enhance the seal between the sealing cap and the container. The locking cap is provided to prevent the overdeflection of the convex end wall of the sealing cap.
The Canadian Pat. App. No. CA 2,203,075 to Goglio entitled “Anti-Spill Device for Liquid Containers” discloses an anti-spill device for liquid containers, in particular for dense or viscous liquids, consisting of a cup-shaped element or under-cap, of elastic material, inserted in the spout of the container and forming a liquid seal, withstanding a pressure at least equal to the pressure exerted by the weight of the liquid held in the container on said cup-shaped element, so that the container can be overturned without there being any separation of the under-cap, which occurs only following an increase in the pressure inside the container, caused for example by squeezing the side wall thereof, the under-cap being connected, by means of a rod-shaped extension to radial elastic fins, such as to avoid complete detachment of the anti-spill device from the container.
The present invention is a new stopper for a container which includes components facilitating control over the sealing pressure. The components include an actuating nut which moves up and down along the length of a guide within a plug. The plug can readily be inserted inside the mouth of the container and the knob of the stopper can be rotated in either direction to control the sealing pressure of the plug against the container mouth